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Ken Shirriff

Other ROMs, such as this constant ROM, are not exactly a grid but are slightly optimized: the transistors are somewhat distorted and the grid is squished a bit to take advantage of empty space.
It's not clear if these potential transistors should be counted since there might not be room to fill in all of them. Also, some transistors act as diodes and many act as pull-up resistors.

5 comments
Ken Shirriff

So does the 8086 have 19,618 transistors or 29,277? It all depends on what you count.
For more, see my blog post: righto.com/2023/01/counting-tr

Urethramancer🐀

@kenshirriff It's kind of amazing that it does all it does with under 20000 transistors.

Klaus Aschenbrenner

@kenshirriff I really love your blog, and enjoying reading your blog postings. Ine question: from where do you get all these CPU die pictures?

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